Thursday, April 10, 2008

Oh certainly I dont want to eat them. Im a vegetarian. But I still enjoy the smell.

So, like, remember last fall when Billy D finally had to fess up to stealing 'Inner Life'? Remember how the Discovery Institute hung him out to dry, even though they obviously played a part in that fiasco?

Well, I really wondered how the DI would respond to EXPELLED getting caught doing the same goddamn thing. Would the DI pull a Dover and run away screaming, letting Premise fend for itself? Or was the DI inseparably entangled with the Frankenstein 'Inner Life', completely unable to distance itself from its making, and be forced to take responsibility for their actions?

Hum hum hum.

Honestly, I thought they would bail. Make EXPELLED pick a fall guy (like Kevin Miller, or their computer animator) and wash their hands of EXPELLED. Pull a Dover and pretend they didnt have anything to do with it.

But it was clear to me from the beginning that DI had a hand in this. Quote Kevin Miller:

But as far as I'm concerned, no one has copyrighted any cellular processes--at least not yet. I'm sure Craig Venter would like to.

Thats stupid enough to be DI 'lawyer' advice. Well, Kevin, you cant copyright Mus musculus either, but Id really like to see you draw a yellow pair of shorts on Mickey Mouse, put him in EXPELLED, and see what Disney has to say.

But Jonathan Wells, 'ol Papa-TARD himself, has come to the defense of Premise, clinching the DI-Frankenstein connection:

Expelled does NOT use the Harvard animation. The producers paid a professional to create a new animation that is more accurate than the Harvard one (based on current knowledge of cellular processes). Any similarities between the Expelled animation and the Harvard one are due to the fact that both animations depict many of the same processes.

'A professional.' Now, it took a team of Harvard PIs/students and professional bioanimators 14 months to make 'Inner Life'. Premise hired a dude (one dude) to make a nearly identical version in <3 months. And its funny how Wells story doesnt match an earlier defense from Kevin:

We created the animation in conjunction with an animation studio and several cell biologists.

'A dude'. 'An animation studio.' 'Several cell biologists.'

How nebulous of you, Creationists.

And notice how fast Wells jumps to defend the quality of the animation (its BETTER than Harvards!). Thats some fine lulz. Wells, if you werent a functionally retarded Creationist and were actually a 'biologist' you could have picked out a hand full of errors in 'Inner Life' that just so happened to show up in Frankenstein 'Inner Life'. Not just because 'they are the same cellular processes'-- you copied things that are wrong or artistic renditions.

Janine:Does this mean DI has a research lab?Haven't you heard of their Biologic Institute? Follow the link to their web site where you can see the details of their ongoing research and resulting publications.

Ian: The biologic institute site is hilarious. Its filled with pertinent information... So much to read!

Abbie: The Expelled version is much better than the original Harvard version, well, because it's a different shade, lower resolution, and as one perceptive creationist pointed out, the video pans from right to left, instead of left to right.

I begin to wonder if maybe this is indicative of the fundamentalist mindset. They seem to love argument from authority; they demand others accept their word without question, even if their stories are contradictory or at odds with the evidence.

"Reality and objective facts are irrelevant! We didn't plagiarize the video because we SAY WE DIDN'T! We said it, you believe it, that settles it!"

The producers paid a professional to create a new animation that is more accurate than the Harvard one (based on current knowledge of cellular processes).

That's like saying, "We paid a professional to re-record a version of this popular, copyrighted chart-topping hit song that is prettier than the major label version (based on the fact it has a string arrangement)."

Dembski's take on the issue:I’ve gotten to know the producers quite well. As far as I can tell, they made sure to budget for lawsuits. Also, I know for a fact that they have one of the best intellectual property attorneys in the business. I expect that the producers made their video close enough to the Harvard video to get tongues awagging (Headline: “Harvard University Seeks Injunction Against Ben Stein and EXPELLED” — you think that might generate interest in the movie?), but different enough so that they are unexposed. http://www.uncommondescent.com/legal/expelled-plagiarizing-harvard/#comment-229619

Apparently, it's okay to plagiarize as part of a publicity stint and if you've budgetted for it.

As a biologist, I look at those videos and see two identical animations of a process that has been put together from thousands of pieces of disparate data. Keep in mind - we don't have a detailed video of this process. This is one animator's choice in how to animate a sequence of events that have not been seen at the level of detail shown. Many of the things shown are inferred. Many of them are simplified. A few of them are wrong. And all of them are exactly the same in the Expelled video.

To write it as an analogy, imagine that you are a student in an architecture class asked to draw a building. Any building, of any shape or size. You draw a beautiful skyscraper, 148 stories tall, with metallic sides, and huge windows, with an enormous bronze ostrich at the apex of the building. Now imagine the student next to you also draws a building that is 148 stories tall, with metallic sides, huge windows (of identical shape as yours) and a gigantic silver ostrich on the top. When you accuse him of copying your building he says, "What? It's a building. Of course they're going to look similar. They're both buildings."

As someone who had no interest in cellbio and biochem when it was forced upon me (much like I didn't like 'good' books until I was free to read them of my own volition), I wouldn't mind a quick run-through of the errors that are present in the animation.

Assuming there're more that the artistic license of simplifying things to remove the crowded and stochastic aspect which bother PZed so (I understand that much - I may be trained as a chemist, but I do realise that pushing around electrons is an abstraction).

There was a great comment from someone on Pharyngula ("Peter Irons drafts a letter, #195):

"I can't wait for the court case, where Premise has to argue that the similarities between the animations are the result of convergent evolution, while XVIVO argues that they are the result of intelligent design!"

I’ve gotten to know the producers quite well. As far as I can tell, they made sure to budget for lawsuits. Also, I know for a fact that they have one of the best intellectual property attorneys in the business.

Says teh person defending an incredible group of incompetent hacks. If they hire their lawyers in the same way they hire their producers this should be quite funny.

I am reminded of cartographers of olde, who would intentionally put mistakes in their maps so they could tell when they were being plagiarised.

No need for the "of olde". It's still commonly done today, often things like naming an otherwise un-named hill or mountain away from the focus/purpose of the map "Mount [insert name of cartographer's cat]".

alex: i like the idea that vegetarianism would be a hindrance for anyone wishing to eat a creationist. ha.

One rationalization I have come across is the unwillingness to eat something with eyes, or at least a face. So, it may be that creationists, who obviously cannot see, are free for food. But IANAV (I am not a vegetarian). Nor cannibal, at least yet. Roast them anyway, just in case there is no Hell. Or just use them as incense.

So...does that mean that you worship seitan? I marinated and fried him today. It's braised wheat gluten that looks like a cross between brains and meat, in case anyone was wondering. Risky business, eating all that gluten with my vaccine-addled, "autistic" atheist brain. I almost wish a creationist would ask me where I get my protein...

"I can't wait for the court case, where Premise has to argue that the similarities between the animations are the result of convergent evolution, while XVIVO argues that they are the result of intelligent design!"

Well, to get nitpicky, I'm not sure how much of this copyright infringement could be described as "intelligent".

"Its because our narcissistic, self proclaimed, self image of God is being threatened."

Yes Ferris you get an “A”.

I told my 4-year-old son when he asked me who created the mountains that it was God. I said there are questions that man will never know the answers but there is an answer to everything. I said God is the holder of that information and will reveal it to us when the time is right. All you have to do is ask the question. I wanted to tell him there is much more to my belief in God, such as, He is the source of everything and separately that He is “self” the voice of reason in the back of our heads that say “RUN” when you see a lion in the grass. In other words God is a metaphor for “Self”. But don’t let your ego get away from yourself; there are rules such as our moral traditions that guide us, that make us civil. These moral traditions are not arbitrary constructs of elitists but the consequence of experience in the form of wisdom, and this is where you are failing as humans. If you don’t believe in a religious God try replacing the word God with “Self” in the Ten Commandments and see what you get.

Back to Expelled….

You guys are soooooo smart you can't even tell me in absolutes where the source is.

Smart but stupid and according to the behaviors weaved into this blog morally corrupt, in other words you can’t bring yourself to the conclusion that you don’t know the answers.

But it seems that you do come to the conclusion that every one who believes in ID and everybody associated with Expelled is not as smart as you because of a remake of the animated sequence in the movie. This is childish Liberal gibberish. Your proclamation that the debate is over, that ID is fantasy, is utter nonsense. Jeees what is happening to our children? Are we returning to the planet of the apes.... or at least the 15% of those that do not believe in God?

BTY for those of you who haven’t seen the movie; Dawkins seriously suggested that one possibility of the source of life are aliens from another planet. Now that's intelligent design.